VacationSelector
Palacio Salvo under a blue sky, Montevideo
MontevideoPalacio Salvo under a blue sky
Playa Tamarindo, Tamarindo
TamarindoPlaya Tamarindo

Photos: Montevideo by Andrés Franchi Ugart…, CC BY-SA 3.0, cropped; Tamarindo by Jarle Naustvik, CC BY 2.0, cropped.

Montevideo or Tamarindo?

Our verdict in twelve categories, each scored against the same fixed benchmark cities, and the climate month by month, so you can choose for your trip.

Choose Montevideo for

  • culture and sights
  • live music and the arts
  • day trips

What lies behind each score is written up on Montevideo’s own page.

Choose Tamarindo for

  • nature and the outdoors
  • beaches
  • wellness

What lies behind each score is written up on Tamarindo’s own page.

Scoreboard

Twelve categories on one fixed scale from 0 to 100. The shaded stretch is the gap between the two.

Beaches & swimming. Montevideo 55, Tamarindo 85: Tamarindo leads by 30 points.
Food & drink. Montevideo 57, Tamarindo 38: Montevideo leads by 19 points.
Culture & sights. Montevideo 54, Tamarindo 5: Montevideo leads by 49 points.
Nightlife. Montevideo 50, Tamarindo 45: Montevideo leads by 5 points.
Nature & outdoors. Montevideo 34, Tamarindo 76: Tamarindo leads by 42 points.
Day trips. Montevideo 55, Tamarindo 28: Montevideo leads by 27 points.
Good for families. Montevideo and Tamarindo are level on 55.
Getting around. Montevideo 54, Tamarindo 32: Montevideo leads by 22 points.
Shopping & style. Montevideo 36, Tamarindo 18: Montevideo leads by 18 points.
Affordability. Montevideo 42, Tamarindo 36: Montevideo leads by 6 points.
Live music & performing arts. Montevideo 57, Tamarindo 10: Montevideo leads by 47 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Montevideo 38, Tamarindo 45: Tamarindo leads by 7 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Montevideo and Tamarindo.

Your match

Pick a travel style or drag the sliders, and both match scores follow your weighting.

Montevideo
Best match
49match

Wins on culture and sights and live music and the arts with your weighting.

Tamarindo
39match

Wins on nature and the outdoors and beaches with your weighting.

What matters to you?

When should you go?

Pick your month. The climate figures are measured averages, not a forecast.

Montevideo in July

15 °Cdaytime high
6 °Cnight-time low
99 mmrain in the month
5 hsunshine a day
11 °Csea
10 hdaylight a day

Tamarindo in July

33 °Cdaytime high
23 °Cnight-time low
129 mmrain in the month
No recordsunshine a day
29 °Csea
13 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

0100200300400JFMAMJJASOND
MontevideoTamarindo

Where the figures come from

Tamarindo's temperatures are measured 54 km from the centre, at Liberia.

Tamarindo has no rain gauge within 25 km of the centre, so its rainfall comes from a gridded climate dataset read at the city rather than from a gauge further away.

Temperature and rainfall are climate normals, averaged over the years shown. Montevideo: 1991-2020 normals, Carrasco (19.2 km from centre). Tamarindo: 1991-2020 normals, Liberia (53.8 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureMontevideoTamarindo
Official language-Spanish
CurrencyPeso Uruguayo (UYU)Costa Rican Colon (CRC)
SocketsCFIL230 V, 50 HzAB120 V, 60 Hz
Driving sideRightRight
Time zoneUTC-3UTC-6
Emergency number911911
Elevation41 m27 m
Main airportCarrasco General Cesáreo L. Berisso International Airport (MVD)17 km from centre15 non-stop destinationsDaniel Oduber Quirós International Airport (LIR)43 km from centre30 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year15 days11 days

By the numbers

MeasureMontevideoTamarindo
City population1,302,9547,132
People per km²1,78557
Museums within 10 km360
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km10
Swim season, months above 21 °C4 months12 months

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Montevideo or Tamarindo somewhere new.

Browse every destination

Sources

Structured data from Wikidata (CC0). Weather data by Meteostat. Meteorological data provided by NOAA, DWD and others. Rainfall where no rain gauge is within 25 km is from the TerraClimate 1991-2020 climatology (Abatzoglou et al. 2018, Scientific Data), read at the city. Sea surface temperature from NOAA OISST v2.1, NOAA Physical Sciences Laboratory. Airport data from OurAirports (public domain). Public holidays from Nager.Date (MIT). Non-stop route lists from the "Airlines and destinations" tables on English Wikipedia airport articles, by Wikipedia contributors, reused under CC BY-SA 4.0. Currency from the ISO 4217 register maintained by SIX, cross-checked against country data from GeoNames (CC BY 4.0). Price level from World Bank open data (PPP conversion factor for private consumption and official exchange rate), CC BY 4.0. Time zones from GeoNames (CC BY 4.0); clock offsets computed from the IANA time zone database. Daylight hours computed from each destination's latitude using the NOAA solar position algorithm. Exchange rates via Frankfurter, based on European Central Bank reference rates.

Category scores are our editorial verdict under rubric v3, each placed against the same fixed benchmark cities; the climate figures are measured. How the scores are set. Snapshot generated 2026-11-02. Daily budgets are estimates from country price levels.